How To Save TONS Of Money On Printing

Over the last 12 years of homeschooling our 6 children, we have printed so many resources. One way we have save tons of money on printing, is when purchasing our homeschool curriculum for the year, we purchase PDF instead of books when available. I will then print off the books and bind them into our own books.

We print off schedules, lapbooks, timeline figures, online printables, Montessori resources, workbooks, and even our own books for the kids to use really the list could go on and on. Once we started doing this for a short time, we realized that we were spending a ton of money on printing pages out. This is when I started looking for different ways to save money on printing.

We had tried getting ink cartridges refilled, but even that was costly when printing hundreds of pages. During my search I did find that there was a certain printers that you could purchase that allow you to purchase a separate ink system. I was a little skeptical that they would work, or that the quality of printing would be compromised.

We Save TONS Of Money on Printing With This System

After our old printer broke down we decided to purchase the printer that would work with the external ink system. I had originally shared about our experience with the system. I cannot say how much I LOVED this system. It was pretty easy to install and use, and most importantly saved us SOO much money!

We were paying less about $.01 per page and that was only because of the cost of paper. This system has saved us THOUSANDS of dollars!! Not only is this a great printer to save on ink, but there are other things that make this printer perfect for home offices or homeschools.

Has WI-FI connection.

Can print double sided pages.

Has a top copier and flat copier/scanner.

Has a fax machine.

Can scan pages in as PDF files.

Prints graph paper.

Has 2 different paper drawers.

LCD Display touch screen.

Our Old Setup Vs. Our New Setup

Over time we printed so many pages using the original printer we started getting an error that it was at the end of it’s service life. At the time we read online that it meant that we printed so many pages and we had to get a new printer it was well over 100,000 pages 😯 . While I was writing this post I found out that there was a download that might have been able to fix it.

Either way we now have a newer model of the printer, so I am going to share our new setup with you. The ink system with our old printer and the new one is slightly different. They both essentially work the same and have never given us any problems.

While the old setup worked great, I am happier with the new setup for a few reasons. The old setup if it was bumped and knocked over the ink would spill everywhere. The new setup is in closed containers inside of a big container. Even if it were to get knocked over it wouldn’t spill everywhere. So it is essentially a much more stable setup which gives me better piece of mind with 6 kids!

A look At Our Setup To Save Tons Of Money On Printing

Here is a look at the front of the printer. A pretty basic printer. It does have 2 different drawers for paper so you can keep colored paper or card stock in the second drawer, which I find nice.

In this photo you can see the system that sits on the right side of the printer. It is supposed to be kept up a higher, which is why we have stacked some DVD cases and put the system on them. The lid closes no problem with the system going through into the lid.

Refill Your Ink Containers For Super Cheap

On the top of the printer is the box of refill ink for when you need to refill your containers. I have purchased the refills twice in 4 years, 1 of which was just a couple months ago. So even if you print very frequently like we do, you still will not go through the ink very often at all.

Another thing that is really nice about these refills is that it doesn’t make a mess refilling the containers. With other ink refills it was a huge mess to refill the ink systems, and ink doesn’t come out of things nicely at all. This system has big refill spots and you just take the tip of the bottle and squeeze it into the big hole. You might get a very little bit on your fingers but that is it.

Here is a close up of the refill ink we purchase. You can find it HERE over on Amazon for pretty cheap, which is where I purchase it.

Here is a look at the side of the printer with the lid open so you can see how it goes into the printer itself. It also shows how the ink is very enclosed so the ink doesn’t make a mess anywhere.

Here is a view of the set up from above. There is enough room when the lid closes so that the printer doesn’t catch the tubes the ink travels through. The clips are provided with the system to keep everything from getting tangled up.

The ink cartridges fit right where the normal cartridges would sit without any issues. There is a reset button if the printer decides to tell you that you have installed the wrong ink system. I have only had this happen a couple times. I just hold the button down for a minute and it fixes the problem without any issues. There is a battery in the system that I have not had to replace in the last 4 years.

Newer Model Available Now

Since we purchased our new printer about 4 years ago the model we purchased has been updated. I am sharing the link to the new version of printer which is really the same. The only difference is that the LCD screen and a few of the buttons on the front of the printer are different. The ink system is the same as the one I have for our printer, so the set up would be no different then we used.

So you now have our secret to how we save a TON of money on printing. How does your house/family/office save money on printing? What have you used in the past? Leave a comment below letting me know, I would love to hear from you.

Looking for more ways to save money? Heaed over to my money saving ideas Pinterest board.

Hello, I’m Nicole

I am a homeschool mama to 6 blessings. We have homeschooled our children for 13 years now and wouldn’t change it for anything. We have children from 7 years old up through 19 now. To learn more about us or for some ideas on where to start head over to our

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